Now the Single Taxers are not wrong in principle; but they are behind the times. Out of landowning there has grown a lazier way of living on other people’s labor without doing anything for them in return. Land is not the only property that returns a rent to the owner. Spare money will do the same if it is properly used. Spare money is called Capital; its owner is called a capitalist; and our system of leaving all the spare money in the country in private hands like the land is called Capitalism. Until you understand Capitalism you do not understand human society as it exists at present. You do not know the world, as the saying is. You are living in a fool’s paradise; and Capitalism is doing its best to keep you there. You may be happier in a fool’s paradise; and as I must now proceed to explain Capitalism, you will read the rest of this book at the risk of being made unhappy and rebellious, and even of rushing into the streets with a red flag and making a greater fool of yourself than Capitalism has ever made of you. On the other hand, if you do not understand Capitalism you may easily be cheated out of all your money, if you have any, or, if you have none, duped into sacrificing yourself in all sorts of ways for the profit of mercenary adventurers and philanthropic humbugs under the impression that you are exercising the noblest virtues. Therefore I will risk letting you know where you are and what is happening to you. Nothing but a very narrow mind can save you from despair if you look at all the poverty and misery around you and can see no way out of it all. And if you had a narrow mind you would never have dreamt of buying this book and reading it. Fortunately, you need not be afraid to face the truth about our Capitalism. Once you understand it, you will see that it is neither eternal nor even very old-established, neither incurable nor even very hard to cure when you have diagnosed it scientifically. I use the word cure because the civilization produced by Capitalism is a disease due to shortsightedness and bad morals: and we should all have died of it long ago if it were not that happily our society has been built up on the ten commandments and the gospels and the reasonings of jurists and philosophers, all of which are flatly opposed to the principles of Capitalism. Capitalism, though it has destroyed many ancient civilizations, and may destroy ours if we are not careful, is with us quite a recent heresy, hardly two hundred years old at its worst, though the sins it has let loose and glorified are the seven deadly ones, which are as old as human nature.